Siblings: A Hazmat Diary Short Story

Author's Note : This story is a bit of fan-fiction regarding a story by
Gorman Bechard, "The Hazmat Diary". If you're interested in
reading the entire book online I would wholeheartedly urge you to! check it
out at: http://www.hazmatdiary.com

"Siblings"

A HazMat Diary Short Story by Jay Seals

It was a beautiful night with stars in the sky. No clouds, just the stars
and the sun's reflection on the Moon. Actually, the Moon is the only thing
in nature that I know of which reflects twocelestial bodies at once.
I keep forgetting that the Moon reflects the Earth, too. So there she was,
the Moon, shining down on my twin sister, captivating Calista's attention
like on so many other nights. Calista was, in the truest sense of the word,
a lunatic. She loved everything about the Moon. There were times that I swore
she knew more about the Moon than Neil Armstrong. Calista used to get me to
help her learn about the Moon when we were children, asking me to give her pop
quizzes on all kinds of facts. Our schoolmates thought she was crazy, like
most other rich kids, but even though I slightly agreed with them, I helped
her anyway. She loved it utterly. Or, at least, she did until that damned thing
led her right off a cliff and to her death.

The way Calista died is probably one of the most unbelievable ways imaginable.
We were kids, at the age of twelve, on a family vacation in California.
It was supposed to be the greatest trip of our lives, according to our parents.
Calista and I went for a walk one night to get out of the hotel for a while.
I didn't want to go, but even then no one was stupid enough to let a
young girl go walking around alone anywhere in California. We came up to this
cliff and Calista was staring at the Moon while she walked. I'd turned my head
to make sure that some far-off gunshots weren't headed our way and the next
thing I knew, Calista's scream cut into the night air as she plummeted to her
death. She was gone forever. The rocks below made sure of that. My twin,
the other half of me, was gone just like that because the fucking Moon was
just too pretty to ignore. One giant leap for Mankind indeed, eh?

Enough about my sister, she's dead. I'd rather talk about how I got my revenge
on the Moon. Let's start with the obvious: I'm rich. And I'm not talking about
a recent windfall kind of rich, either. I'm talking Gates Foundation kind
of rich. When I was in my early twenties, my parents, themselves heirs to a
small fortune built on the Internet, died in a plane crash and I invested the
inheritance into a few cable companies. That investment quickly became my
own empire. In no time at all, I owned three major cable companies and their
affiliates. Media, it seemed, was God. Deathball
certainly helped, too.

My original intention was to educate people in some way through the media
and possibly make enough money to buy a house and settle down, maybe raise some
twins of my own that would survive. It was only dumb luck that the President
decided to make cable free to the American public by giving it government
backing. When that happened last year, I was not only able to afford a new home,
but I could have bought six of them as well as a whole fleet of those old-fashioned
combustible engine cars. When he was running for office he'd already begun
making me a fortune just by promising free cable as a part of his campaign.
Bill DeNitto: the President Who Would Be King. Even Howard Stern didn't
have such high aspirations as DeNitto did.

Of course, it wasn't entirely his idea. Hell, no. It was mine. I was
the one who whispered that one in DeNitto's ear. It started innocently enough,
though. Nothing overt. I gave him the idea over drinks when I was in Greensboro,
North Carolina for a conference. Just lucky, I guess, that he was on the
campaign trail and going through the city at the time. When he heard I was there,
he asked to meet- discretely, to talk about helping his campaign. We met at
some dive- me, him and six of his guards. I was early that night, so I'd started
enjoying a few drinks while I waited for him to show up. The bartender, a
guy with an interesting name- Doctor or something like that- listened to my
story about Calista. The whole conversation got started when he mentioned the
full moon that night. Got my motor going with that one. When I was done, he
suggested that I find a way to blow the bitch up and be done with it. It
was a joke to him, but a ray of light to me. He probably doesn't remember
that to this day, but if he did fuck him. Maybe next time he'll be more
careful with what he says and who he says it to. That's when I hatched my plan
to kill the Moon.

DeNitto and his entourage walked in and sat down with me. We talked for a
while about how we would finance paying for free cable. The problem he was running
into was that none of the cable companies wanted to help him make good on his
word. I decided then and there that I'd help him on one condition: help me kill
the Moon. "Scatter her to the four winds," I said.
He looked at me for a very long time, expressionless. "Say that again,"
he said slowly.
"You heard me," I replied. "All you need is just one cable
company to support you and the rest will fall into line. I'll be the first,
but you've got to do something for me."
"Are you fucking drunk?" he asked. "You're talking about the
fucking Moon! I'm no scientist, but I did get some kind of an
education. Without the Moon our tides go screwy. Hell, who knows what kind
of effect it'd have on the ecology! I'd be remembered as the man who took
out the only romantic thing left in this shit-hole of a country."
I was quiet for a minute, trying to think of a way to convince him. Finally,
it hit me. "Make it a party," I said simply. "Make the American
people want it to go. What do they fucking care, anyway? If there
are any consequences, it's not like anyone in our generation is going to have
to deal with it. To them it'll just be another great moment in history. The
biggest bang to end all bangs. You want the people to be entertained? Fine.
Give them a real show. Blow up the moon."
He sat back a moment in awe, actually considering it. To be honest, I was surprised
that I'd gotten that far. Imagine my astonishment when he looked up at me and
said, "Why the fuck not?"
"Sure," I added. "It won't be your problem when you're gone,
will it? Is Rowland still around to deal with the Long Island Sound? Hell,
no! He left it in someone else's hands, didn't he? With the destruction of the
Moon, you'll not only be creating millions of short-term jobs, but you'll
be insuring that lots of those jobs are secured during the clean-up process.
Police, television, news, military it'll all be under your control because
you're the one that got the ball rolling on it. You'll be hailed as a hero."
The stars began to swim in his eyes. "Yeah yeah, I will be, won't
I? DeNitto the Hero, they'll call me."
"Yup."
"Fuck it. Let's do it."
I handed him another drink. "Give me the Moon and I'll give you the world.
Sounds like a fair trade, doesn't it?"
How could he argue with that?
He didn't.

As promised, I got DeNitto his backing from the cable companies. And in return,
he quietly hired a team of "specialists" who all concurred that the
Moon needed to go. They came up with some poppycock stories about how it was
affecting the Earth's weather patterns adversely. They knew that some people
might poke holes in that, so they constructed this elaborate bullshit about
how the truth of the matter was that the Moon was actually screwing with the
Earth's gravitational pull and that if things continued the way they were,
the Earth and the Moon would end up colliding. Simple self-preservation, they'd
claim. We have to do it or else.

The night it happened, the night they blew it up, was one I'll never forget. All the big shots around the country were making their way
to various parties and social gatherings. President DeNitto actually invited
me to share the experience with him and his group since I had no family left.
I wasn't polite about telling him to fuck off. This was my Quest and I had
to see it through to the very end. I had to be there where it all started.

I looked at my watch. 11:50:39. I'd made damn sure that my watch was in perfect
time with the missile launch silos, right down to the very second. The Casiex,
an amalgam of Timex and Casio, was perfect to the nanosecond for up to thirty
years. It was on time and precise. I had less than nine minutes before my life's
work would be realized.

That was when I saw her out of the corner of my eye. I don't know who she
was or what she was doing there, but she'd made damn sure to keep out of sight
until the last minute. It was a woman, I think younger than me, and she was
watching me in stark silence. What the fuck, I thought to myself. Why
not share it with someone after all?

"How long have you been there?" I asked. She didn't reply, but I
didn't take it personally. Hell, on any other occasion I'd be wary, too, if
some stranger was trying to strike up a conversation on a dark cliff in California.
"Do you have any binoculars?" She shook her head. "In the passenger
seat of my car," I pointed to the silhouette of the vehicle parked some
forty yards away, "I have another pair. Get them if you like." She
did and walked close to me, but not so close that she couldn't bolt if I made
any sudden moves. She was smart, it seemed. Good, I thought, I like
smart people. Smart people make you earn their trust.
"What brings you out here?" I asked her. She mumbled something quietly
in a soft voice. "What?"
"Closure, I said. I lost someone here years ago. I came back to I
don't know get closure or something like that."
I chuckled inwardly at the coincidence. "Friend? Lover? Boyfriend?"
I prodded.
She shook her head slowly. "Brother."
"Really?" I asked with slight astonishment. "Funny I lost
my sister here, too. Back when we were kids." I pointed skyward. "She
was looking at the Moon at the time and wasn't paying attention."
Her face blanched. "Didn't you try to stop her?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I wasn't paying attention, either. One second I was looking
somewhere else and the next she was gone."
She took a step closer to me. "Were you close to your sister?"
A wry smile crept across my face. "You could say that," I answered.
"We were twins. I came out here tonight to I guess closure is as
good a name as any to call what I'm getting tonight. Maybe a little revenge,
too." She took a hesitant step back at that. "Don't worry," I
soothed. "The only one I want to die tonight is her," I pointed
to the Moon again.
Her brow furrowed. "I don't follow you," she said. "You want
them to blow it up? You support it? Most of the people I know are sad to see
it go."
"Oh, you don't understand," I replied. "She killed my sister.
She deserves to die tonight. She's had it coming to her for decades.
And I'm the one who brought it to her."
The woman put a surprised hand to her chest. "You mean you're responsible
for this?"
I smiled proudly. "The idea was all mine. The funding? A major portion
of it, mine, too. All the hoopla and reports on the news? I got all that going."
Her look was skeptical. "I own a few cable companies," I explained.
"This was part of the bargain I'd struck with DeNitto to help him win his
campaign."
The look on her face was shocked and suddenly frightened. "People don't
say things like that to just anyone," she said nervously. "At least,
not unless they're telling that person the last thing they'll ever hear. Who
are you?"
I smiled kindly. "I'm not worried about telling you. Hell, after tonight,
I won't be worried about telling anyone. Once she's gone, what're they gonna
do about it? Undo the damage? Put it back together? Fuck 'em. And fuck her.
She's getting her just desserts."
We stood there for a few moments in silence. The twinkle of the multitude of
missiles headed for the Moon blinked at us from the night sky. The launch had
begun. In a matter of minutes, they'd strike home and the night would be over,
or darker anyway.
"What's your name?" I asked quietly.
The answer froze my blood. It froze me to the very core. "Calista,"
she said. "And you?"
Like a zombie or a machine on automatic pilot, I answered, "Michael."
"Hmm " she intoned. "That's what my brother's name was.
Before he died."
Without prevarication, I approached her. "Your brother," I began
quickly, "How old was he when he died?"
The forcefulness of my question, the intent look on my face, returned her to
fear. "T-twelve," she stammered. "Why? What does it matter?"
"You don't understand," I shot out, "My sister, the one who died
on this cliff, was named Calista, too. She died when we were twelve! Oh, fuck!
Oh, fuck! What've I done? What have I done?!" I looked her in
the eyes for a moment and without a doubt, I knew. Somehow I just knew
that she was my Calista, my sister. "I've got to stop them!"
I growled. Without waiting for a response, I turned towards my car. The phone
inside it covered the nation. I'd just make a call to DeNitto and he'd take
care of it. I knew he would. I made him and he owed me. He'd bring
me the Leaning Tower of fucking Pisa if I told him to. I yanked the car door
open, barely aware of the fact that I'd bent the handle.

Then I heard it. A low, soft boom, like the sound you hear when a live microphone
jack has been pulled out of an amp too soon, only far away. From off in the
distance I heard cheers and gunshots and loud music fill the night air. The
party was at its climax now. Soon, it was going to end.

I looked back at Calista. She wasn't there. Just like the Moon, she was suddenly
an ephemeral memory, barely an afterthought of reality. But I continued
to stare at the spot where she'd been standing. She was real. I know it. She
was there and we talked. She was my sister and I spoke with her, damn it! Angry,
I spun back around and did the only thing that came to mind. I hit the rooftop
of my car.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something glimmer in the passenger seat.
It was my second pair of binoculars. They were exactly where I'd left them.
Still sitting serenely in my car, untouched and perfectly still. They'd never
been moved at all.